Barbara Hendricks has been a member of the SPD since 1972 and has been the president of the SPD party organization for the District of Kleve since 1989. From 1984 to 1989 she was a member of the District Council (Kreistag) of the Rural District of Kleve. From 1990 to 2001 she was a member of the party council. From 1987 to 2001 she was a member of the state party executive of the SPD in North Rhine-Westphalia – as from 1996 as treasurer.

Since the 1994 elections, Hendricks has been a member of the Bundestag, where, from October 1995 to November 1998, she was a member of the executive of the SPD parliamentary party. Barbara Hendricks was always elected to the Bundestag via the party list of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Since 2001 she has been a member of the SPD (federal) party executive.

Barbara Hendricks and Angela Merkel in 2013

Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister of Finance, 1998-2007

In early 2015, Hendricks proposed a new draft law that imposes an outright ban on fracking for shale gas in the following years and only allow scientific test drilling under strict conditions to assess the risks and environmental impact. The resulting legislation that passed the cabinet in April 2015 softened her line somewhat, restricting fracking until 2019, after which commercial fracking could only go forward after passing various tough regulatory hurdles. The legislation, however, allows fracking for deep-lying or "tight" gas, a technology that has been used for decades in Germany.

Rate the damage it causes (does not cause) the object of VOTE to the European Commonwealth.

Method of ethical VOTE is to choose one of the following values:

0 - moral, there is no prejudice to the European community;-1, -2, -3 - minor damage, harm to the European community;-4, -5, -6 - damage of medium gravity for the European community;-7, -8, -9, -10 - substantial damage, harm to the European community.